How a Village Saved Its Fishery

In a tiny Muslim fishing village
called Tamarind Cape, a mangrove swamp has been reborn.

Twenty-five years ago it was
almost gone. Because Mangrove
charcoal is prized
across Southeast Asia for its cooking properties, a Thai logging company
was making quick use of Tamarind Cape's limited supply of wood. As
the swamp that once split the village in two started to shrink, the
fisherman began to notice something. Their catch was disappearing too.

"Ninety-seven percent of
the 600 people who live here depend on the sea," said Babu Nyansee,
a 74-year-old Imam and the village headman of Tamarind Cape.
Babu and I were sitting on the banks of an estuary, staring out at surreal
towers of limestone that jut suddenly out of the sea in this part of
the Thailand. "As the mangroves disappeared, we began to realize that
it was affecting the fishery; all the fish we eat come here to spawn.
And many of the things they eat do too. So, slowly, we brought the ecosystem
back with the help of Yadfon, an NGO based in Trang."

Babu is an unlikely conservationist, and a defender of this
fishing village's interests.

The old man spoke slowly and
deliberately. Though small and rail thin, he projects considered strength,
and as we talked it was clear he was speaking for everyone in his
village. Babu is an unlikely conservationist, and a defender of this
fishing village's interests.

The success of this small community
in Tamarind Cape stands as a model for progress in Thailand's south,
where polluting prawn and fish farms patchwork the coast, and many fishermen
complain of emptying seas.

As we walked the muddy banks,
balancing on palm fronds so as not to slip in the muck, he showed me
a tool they're using here: small fish traps that float in the nutrient-rich
current heading out of the swamp, where they also farm seaweed. "We
used to just throw all our small fish away, or sell them for next to
nothing. Now, we put them in these traps, and the grouper grow big and
in a few months can sell for 150 baht ($4.50) each."

That's enough to feed a family
for a few days.

Later, we cruised Babu's
swamp in a longtail boat, past baroque tangles of mangrove roots. An
osprey swooped over the river ahead of us, and Babu smiled and traced
its path with his finger. It was a peaceful scene.

But just to the south, in the
provinces that border Malaysia, a bloody, protracted war is being fought. This insurgency, which officially began in 2004 but
has been fomenting for decades, has claimed over 3,500 lives in Thailand.
Lately, there have been bombings and shootings in Pattani, Yala, and
Narathiwas provinces almost daily, but the conflict gets very little
international attention.

We were in Trang Province,
a 45-minute drive north of the violence, but here ethnic Malay
Muslims and Thai Buddhists appeared to live in relative harmony. I asked
Babu why.

"In Trang, in my village
at least, Muslims and Buddhists are like cousins. We join in each other's
celebrations, we fish together, and we are all pretty satisfied with
the role of our government. But in the deep south, people are dissatisfied
with the lawmakers, and with human rights abuse on both sides. But there
is another reason: The south is very poor. There is no work there, and
there aren't that many fish."

To ease the suffering of his
ethnic group in this war-torn area, Babu has invited several Muslim
village heads to Mangrove Cape to study how to reintroduce these forested
swamps. They are also encouraged to practice more sustainable models
of fishing in their villages. "It's a small amount of people that
we can affect," he admitted, "but a small change can make a difference."

There are many ethnic and political
flashpoints in Thailand's southern insurgency, and it shows little
sign of letting up. But as we cruised the mangroves, this Imam seemed
to think that peace, too, might result from the rebirth of this misunderstood
resource.

Jarrett Wrisley hails from Allentown, Pennsylvania. For the past seven years, he's been working as a writer in Asia, though he still dreams of greasy cheese steaks.
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Jarrett Wrisley hails from Allentown, Pennsylvania. For the past seven years, he's been working as a writer in Asia, though he still dreams of (and occasionally returns for) greasy cheese steaks. Jarrett's first trip to Asia came as a college student, when he traveled to Beijing to study Mandarin Chinese. He returned to China after graduation, and began writing about Chinese food in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province. After a six-month stint in Chengdu, he moved on to Shanghai, where he worked as a food critic and magazine editor for four years before striking out on his own. After six years in China, he recently moved to Bangkok, where yellow-clad protesters immediately shut down the airport where he had just landed. Luckily for him, he couldn't leave—and now intends to stay. Jarrett is presently working on a series of modern Chinese cookbooks with Hong Kong chef Jereme Leung and writing features that focus on food and culture in Asia. He'll be bouncing around the region as much as possible and writing about things he encounters along the way. His blog trains an eye on food but addresses other cultural phenomena, tidbits of travel, and the oddball politics of East Asia.